I wasn't even sure if blogger would let me in here. It's been a bloody long time. I regret that I've been away & will spare you the litany of excuses. Suffice it to say I've been swamped running the endless joy-tedium continuum of motherhood, launching a minor real-life business venture & by the general ebb & flow of an existence that is often sadly not worth remarking on.
But I break my sad mold tonight because it is the eve of my son's birth & I cannot abide letting the event pass with nary a word from me on the subject. He's two years old in the morning. I can hardly believe it, & yet I know it is so by his incredible vocabulary, his increasing desire to go his own way & the surprising new skills that he adds to his repertoire seemingly on a daily basis. He still nurses around the clock, & he still loves his Mama most of all, although Papa figures less & less the bit player & more the hero every day. He's not a baby anymore.
He's a little under the weather just now. "Holejew!" he cries every time I turn around, his arms upraised, plowing into me & stomping on my feet to get my attention. It's hard to get a thing done when his needs are so intense. But I tell myself the time is short where he will need so very much of me. I sit on the kitchen floor & nurse him when he begs it of me in his pitiful wail. I try not to think of all the hundreds of things I would rather be doing.
Because this is what I am doing right now.
He's two years old. He can count to 50. I know. It seems ridiculous & he doesn't get all the numbers in their proper order, but he's really very close. M sings him to sleep at night these days & when he runs out of song ideas he sings 1-2-3-4-5-6-7 to the tune of the ABCs. It takes until 50, sometimes sooner, before X is begging for a new song.
He's two years old. He speaks in these great, complicated sentences that go on & on & on. He's using the proper verb tense & speaking about the future intelligently. "It's really cold outside. Gonna be nice & warm in Mama's car." He loves boats & the river & "big wa-erpalls" & we take him as often as we can to the mighty Gorge to see the raging water falling. He stares mesmerized, thrilled & can't wait to mosey down the highway to see another one. He often asks to "put shoes on, get in Mama's car, go to the river, go on a boat with K- and B- & Uncle Boppy & Mama & Papa & Xaver now." We tried to finagle some sort of boat trip for his birthday tomorrow, but March isn't really the season for yachting on the Willamette & I can't imagine a canoe is really what he has in mind.
He's two years old. He can thread the string into the old fashioned top we got him in Mexico last week & spin it all by himself. "Xaver do it!" is a common refrain these days & we try to give him the space he needs to learn how to do stuff while keeping close enough so he doesn't murder himself. He's climbing steps alone. He builds complicated Lego houses & props his wooden farm animals on various perches: "kiken on top of da house!" or "horse unner da house." He can stack blocks into teetering towers & knock them down again (although that usually makes him cry, especially if he's terribly fond of the tower). He loves to color with "caca cayons" & could do it for hours on end. He's got a great fist for it, scribbling & swirling & zigzaging his hand across the page: "Xaver daw oval! -Xaver daw house! -Xaver daw long snake" -he sees all kinds of random things in his scrawl. And some of the time I can see it too.
He's two years old. He's incredibly creative. He sees faces in everything, in the clouds, in the water flowing, in swirling concrete patterns. "I gee eyes, & nose & ears!" Any textured space becomes a pattern to interpret, an image to make out & name. He loves language -the way words rhymes tickles him to no end. "Chalk, walk, clock, sock" -I list long strings of rhyming words for him in the car, during breakfast & invariably send him into fits of giggles. He makes up nonsense words & laughs heartily at his cunning. And if we repeat them, all the better. He sings all the songs we've taught him in lilting little melodies & in unison with us. It's adorable. Gone is the unintelligible monotone. I hope he has my pipes.
He's two years old. He will never be two years old again. I try to save as much as I can of these remarkable days in words & in pictures, but it is all sliding away quicker than can be captured. And so much of it is so banal it doesn't warrant a write-up, but mysteriously I treasure even the dullest moments with this child. I try to be okay with it, -the unrelenting passage of time -but I feel guilty most of the time: guilty for not writing it all done, for not filming this or that, for not capturing this moment or that in some way. I think my worry comes mostly from the fear that I will lose it. That I will one day be unable to summon the sound of his sweet voice barking: "Holejew!" When he's replaced all these sweet mispronunciations & tender toddler gestures with the shrugs & grunts & (worse!) silence of a moody teenager, will I still be able to recall how it felt to be his mother when he was still so brand new, so eager to explore the world while holding my hand? I hope so.
In two hours Xavier will be two. Two years ago at this moment I was being wheeled to OR. I was scared & I was totally out of my mind with exhaustion. But I was ready after my long ordeal to finally meet my little son. I had no idea what I was in for. The joy that has been mine is immeasurable. I love you, Xavier Shannon. Happy 2nd Birthday.
